21st Century Affiliate Marketing

johndilbeck by johndilbeck
Last updated: 08/21/2011

Affiliate Marketing is a great home business

I have owned several home businesses over the last 30 years, including consulting, programming, printing, page layout, and blacksmithing, and I think affiliate marketing is a relatively easy way to earn extra money online.

Of course, it's a business, so you have to continue to upgrade your knowledge, keep up with your industry, learn new skills, and do the work necessary.

That's right. It takes work.

And nobody is going to do it for you for free, no matter what they say.

You'll have to invest time, effort, and money to build your business - otherwise, you just have another hobby.

I'm no expert and I still have lots to learn, but I do earn 100% of my income from affiliate marketing and I'm willing to share what I learn.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you'll take a moment to rank this lens and leave any feedback you'd like to share.

Act on your dream!

JD

21st Century Affiliate Marketing

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On every page of my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog, right below my photo in the right column, you'll find an email subscribe form.

This email service is provided by AWeber, the most trusted name in the industry for managing newsletters, mailing lists, and autoresponder series.

The only way you can subscribe by email is to fill in that form.

Within a minute or two, usually, AWeber will send a confirmation email to the address you entered. Only after you click the link to confirm your email address will you start receiving new posts from my affiliate marketing blog.

What are you waiting for? (grin)

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Note: if you were wondering, I removed the active sign-up form from this lens when I learned that it would stop working.

Favorite Affiliate Programs

I pick my favorite affiliate programs based on several criteria.

1. Is this the best product of its type that I can find?

2. Do I use it myself?

3. Would I recommend it to my best friend?

4. Do I earn commission checks on a regular basis?

5. Are the marketing tools easy to use?

6. Does the affiliate manager provide good support, feedback, and suggestions?

If a product or service and its associated affiliate program meets these criteria, I'm proud to promote it.

You won't find me recommending products and services I don't use myself. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you.

Act on your dream!

JD
Site Build It! 5 Pillar Club
Affiliate Signup

Recommending Site Build It! is a pleasure, and I earn nice commission checks on a regular basis.

I'm not just an affiliate, I'm a customer. I'm building my Act On Your Dream! site with SBI and I love everything it does to help me build a successful online business.

Learn Affiliate Marketing - it's free!

Affiliate Masters Course

Featured Affiliate Marketing Lenses

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21st Century Affiliate Marketing Tools

These are tools I use to build my affiliate marketing business. I recommend them to you.

You won't see me promoting the latest "flash in the pan" product, and I don't over-hype anything with breathless pronouncements about "the death of" this or that or "this is the secret" of whatever.

I only promote practical products and services that I've proven to myself are worth the cost and produce good results.

These are some of those products and services, in no particular order.
Email Marketing Software, Email Newsletters and Autoresponders by AWeber
Opt-in email marketing is easy with AWeber! Send email newsletters and autoresponders. Get top-notch email deliverability and toll-free support.

AWeber is the very best choice for managing your email newsletters, mailing lists, and autoresponders.

This is the only email marketing company I recommend.

Affiliate Marketing in the 21st Century

A great way to make money

Some people do very well with affiliate marketing and some people never make a dime with it.

I'm somewhere in the middle.

I love affiliate marketing because all I have to do is evaluate products and services, select the best, and promote them on the Internet.

The merchant or company providing the product or service handles all sales, processing, delivery, customer service, returns, refunds, and everything else.

That leaves me free to spend my time finding new products and promoting them on a variety of websites, blogs, forums, and social networking sites I own and manage.

Perhaps your opinion of affiliate marketing differs from mine. Tell me about it. Share your thoughts and opinions with the world!

(You must be a logged in Squidoo member to participate and all HTML will be stripped out of your comments.)

Is affiliate marketing a great way to build a home business in the 21st century?

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Yes, affiliate marketing is great

BarbaraCasey says:

Sure, but there's a learning curve... plus you need loads of traffic to your web pages, since affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

Tiddledeewinks says:

I thought it was a dream come true to work at home (because of chronic pain, but I'm not on disability), but I've been signed up with affiliate programs for about a year and made ZERO dollars so far. I use Squidoo to promote products but only make a few dollars a month from the Squidoo after nearly two years! But, I'm not giving up. I have kids to feed. I've heard of people making enough to buy a house, and that's what I want to do. I hate being stuck in an apartment in the city. I've never been to NC but from movies and pictures the western part looks like the most beautiful place on earth to me, and I want to travel there someday soon!

mulberry says:

If you are dedicated to learning and persistent you can earn a living off of affiliate marketing.

johndilbeck says:

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online.

I earn 100% of my income from affiliate marketing and do it from the comfort of my home in the mountains of western North Carolina - a beautiful place to live.

It took a couple of years to learn what I needed to know and to get steady commission checks coming in, but now my income is growing and it allows me to stay home and care for my elderly mom who, otherwise, would have to go into a nursing home.

There are a lot of scams out there and systems that just don't work, so you have to be careful. But, if you'll take it slow and easy and build your business by marketing the best products, you can learn to earn an income with affiliate marketing, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

No. Are you kidding? What a scam!

 

Affiliate Marketing Poll

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Private affiliate programs or affiliate networks

Which is the best?

Do you prefer working with large affiliate program networks such as Commission Junction, Linkshare, and the others, or do you prefer private affiliate programs such as the Site Build It 5 Pillar Club?

Over the last several years, I've made much more from private affiliate programs than I have from all the large networks combined.

But, perhaps that's just me.

Which works best for you?

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Affiliate Marketing Books from Amazon

These are the top books that Amazon.com recommends for affiliate marketing.

I have not (necessarily) read these books and these are not a personal recommendation from John Dilbeck.

However, Amazon does a good job of recommending the best books for any given category, so they may be worth your time. The choice is yours.
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Affiliate Marketing Feedback

What's your opinion of this lens and affiliate marketing? Love it? Hate it? Don't know much about it?

You're invited to share your thoughts.

submit
  • Reply
    CCGAL Aug 2, 2011 @ 2:58 pm | delete
    This lens has a lot of potential, John - but you've got some broken modules.
  • Reply
    johndilbeck Aug 2, 2011 @ 3:14 pm | delete
    Hi Janelle. Thanks for the heads-up, but I don't see the broken modules. I'll look closer to see if I can find what you're talking about.
  • Reply
    Tiddledeewinks Mar 7, 2009 @ 4:24 pm | delete
    I don't know what I'm doing wrong, as I still am trying to find out all this internet and computer stuff, but would love to also make my income from affiliate marketing. I'm hoping to get my three teen boys started in it to earn some money. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! I'll look into the 5 Pillar Club.
  • Reply
    johndilbeck Nov 14, 2008 @ 8:35 am | in reply to craig111 | delete
    Hi Craig. I love the AWeber subscription form, too, but I'm afraid it may not be working at any moment. Apparently, the folks at Squidoo are working to stop this widget from working. It's a shame, because there are many of us who want a Squidoo-approved method of adding AWeber sign-up forms to our lenses.
  • Reply
    craig111 Nov 13, 2008 @ 3:39 pm | delete
    I love the Aweber subscribe form. Brilliant!
  • Reply
    johndilbeck Jul 17, 2008 @ 6:31 am | delete
    I love affiliate marketing. The income I earn from my online marketing business enables me to work at home and care for my elderly mother. Act on your dream! JD

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johndilbeck

John Dilbeck lives in the mountains of western North Carolina, near the small town of Murphy. He loves living in the southern Appalachian mountains,... more »

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